Ben Carson has become something of a celebrity on the right thanks in no small part to things like equating the Affordable Care Act to slavery. Well, if his fans on the right liked that analogy, they’re positively going to love this one:
Dr. Ben Carson, the Republican right’s favorite African-American neurosurgeon, often says that President Obama’s health care law is the worst thing since slavery.
But in my recent interview with the good doctor—who is riding high in the presidential preliminaries, having come in a close second to Sen. Ted Cruz this past weekend in the Republican Leadership Conference’s much-ballyhooed straw poll—he upped the ante.
He claimed that Obamacare has been even more damaging to the United States than the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
“You said Obamacare was the worst thing since slavery. Why do you think it was worse than 9/11?” I asked him.
“Because 9/11 is an isolated incident,” he answered.
Here’s how the exchange went (Williams is conservative talk show host Armstrong Williams):
Me: “Who do you think caused families more pain—Obamacare or Osama bin Laden?”
Carson: “Let me explain.”
Williams: “Let him answer the question!”
Carson: “Things that are isolated issues as opposed to things that fundamentally change the United Sates of America and shift power from the people to the government. That is a huge shift.”
Me: “Right. But what do you think caused specific families more pain—Obamacare or Osama?”
Carson: “You have to take a long term.”
Me: “You’re not answering the question.”
Carson: “Will you listen? You have to take a long-term look at something that fundamentally changes the power structure of America. You have to be someone who reads. Who is well-read. I want you to go back tonight and pull out what Saul Alinsky says about health care under the control of the government.”
Regardless of what one’s opinion about the Affordable Care Act might be, anyone asserting that it is worse than a terrorist attack that killed 3,000 people and set the nation on a course toward more than a decade of war, new restrictions on civil liberties, torture, drone attacks, and NSA spying all authorized by sitting Presidents, and all the security restrictions we must now deal with on a daily basis, is quite simply a fool. Carson will no doubt be lauded by the right for these comments, just as he was lauded for the absurd slavery analogy, but he’s just as much of a wingnut as the rest of the people that crowd worships.
On some level, though, I have to wonder how someone who is obviously intelligent could be so stupid.
